


oh this meandering road

by theagonyofblank



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 14:42:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1308607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theagonyofblank/pseuds/theagonyofblank
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They slip away quietly in the dawn and put as many miles as they can between them and Beacon Hills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	oh this meandering road

**Author's Note:**

> This is another fic I've had in my WIP folder since last September, and I finally decided to finish it up. 
> 
> It takes place after the midseason finale (season 3A).

They leave.

It’s very anticlimactic; there’s no dramatic music, no tearful goodbyes – certainly not a surprise, as she had never come here to _make friends_ – but it doesn’t feel at all like how she expected.

(It should be _more_ , she thinks as she glances at Derek, but never behind. Never back into the apartment he called home and she called… well. It was never _home._ Not to her.)

She touches Derek’s elbow, gently, and he turns to smile at her.

They slip away quietly in the dawn and put as many miles as they can between them and Beacon Hills.

The farther they get, the lighter the weight in her chest is, until she can barely feel it at all.

It’s a fresh start, and that’s as good a place to begin as any.

 

 

*

Some things, however, she just can’t let go.

She has hours upon hours to think about this, of course, head resting against the cold windshield as she taps out a mindless rhythm on the armrest, watching as they speed past pine after pine after pine.

“He locked me up in a vault for three months,” she argues one night, when they’ve checked in at some dingy motel that smells like mothballs and old, forgotten things, her voice raw and furious and _hurt_.

Derek clenches his jaw and looks away.

She marches right up to him, forces his chin down, and searches his eyes.

She doesn’t know how to name what she finds – it’s a mixture of regret and compassion and shame, and it’s nothing that will ever make up for those months in captivity.

“He put me away,” she says steadily, “and you just _let him go._ ”

 

 

*

The drive the next day is strained, at best.

Derek is tense – Cora can see it in the set of his shoulders, the way he clicks his jaw every now and then – and it’s not guilt that makes her put her hand on his. She’s just _tired._

The way he relaxes and sinks back into the driver’s seat is instantaneous.

“I’m not sorry,” Cora clarifies softly. Bringing up the past – the _truth_ – there’s no shame in that. And sometimes, she thinks that her brother has gotten so used to being an Alpha that he’s forgotten what it feels like to be a Beta and to have decisions made for you. “And I won’t ever be sorry. Not for that.”

To his credit, Derek doesn’t stiffen at her words. All he does is glance at her out of the corner of his eye and nod.

“I’ve always wanted to see Nevada,” Derek says after a long silence.

Cora murmurs her assent as she stares out the window, watching the trees give way to desert land.

 

 

*

Derek keeps in touch with Scott from time to time.

He never says who it is on the other end, receiving and sending those messages, but it doesn’t need to be said.

Derek’s always been a pack wolf – happiest when running with others, when he’s part of something bigger than himself. It’s always come so naturally to him.

Cora likes to imagine that in another time, another place, he would have made a great Alpha, but there’s hardly any point to that sort of thinking these days.

He’s not an Alpha, not anymore, and now they’re adrift.

 

 

*

She dreams every now and then.

Most times, she wakes up with the taste of smoke on her tongue and heat on her skin.

Once, she wakes up screaming to an empty room.

“You okay?” Derek asks when he comes back in, the smell of grass and dry heat on him.

It makes her want to stretch her legs and run with him, under the moonlight and through the tall grass. She wonders if it would make her forget everything that’s happened the past few weeks. Instead, she forces a smile and curls back up under the blankets, finding comfort in the action. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

She lies awake the rest of the night, staring at the shadowy outline of her brother as he tosses and turns in his sleep.

 

 

*

It’s not Derek’s first roadtrip.

That much is obvious by the ease he navigates the endless highways, pointing at coordinates and mapping out paths they can take.

(What seems unusual is Derek’s choice to drive as far north of California as he can, before looping back down and across to Vegas. But Cora gets to see the Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman’s Wharf for the first time, feel the fresh sea breeze on her skin, and that’s perfectly okay with her.)

He never talks to her about his first time on these roads, but Cora imagines it was just after the fire. She imagines him and Laura, taking turns at the wheel, not knowing anywhere to go but _forward_. She imagines it must have been a comfort to have had someone by his side, someone to hold his hand.

There’s a lot about Derek that makes Cora wonder.

It’s been months since their reunion, and she barely knows him at all.

 

 

*

Cora writes to Lydia.

She doesn’t know why she does it, but it doesn’t feel _wrong_ – so she takes that as a good sign.

(She thinks back to that night in the loft, before the twins were discovered to be alive. She remembers the way Lydia had clung to her, fingers pressing into her wrist and breath warm against her skin.

It’s hardly a friendship, but it’s _something._ )

The first postcard she sends has Las Vegas spelled out on the front in large block letters, set against the Vegas skyline.

On the back, she scribbles a quick note – _Just a whole lot of desert out here –_ and sends it off before she can give it further thought.

 

 

*

They’re on the edge of Reno, tanking up, and Derek waits as Cora comes out of the convenience store, her hands full of beef jerky and Pringles.

Once she’s haphazardly thrown the snacks into the back of the car and safely buckled in, he turns to her.

“Where to next?”

She tears off a piece of jerky, tossing the smaller half to her brother.

“I hear Portland’s nice this time of the year.”

 

 

*

The recent drop in temperature has Cora releasing visible puffs into the air with every breath.

“Tired already?” Derek teases. He’s started wearing his leather jacket again, even though he looks completely out of place with it in the middle of this hiking trail.

Oregon is beautiful. Like it’s straight out of a dream.

“No way,” Cora responds with a grin.

Derek’s eyes flash blue for a second. “Race you to the top.”

 

 

*

Inadvertently, they find themselves at a bonfire.

Cora’s sitting on the very edge, on the outskirts of the general cheer and cacophony around her, and she takes occasional swigs of her beer. She scuffs her worn Converses into the dirt and stares off into the distance.

She’s never warmed to fire. She recalls flames licking at her skin and the cries of her family around her.

It sends a cold chill through her – one that makes her search for Derek, her eyes scanning quickly across the sea of unfamiliar faces and nose picking through strange scents. When she finds him, she feels an overwhelming sense of relief she can’t explain, and her heart slows to its normal rhythm, _thump thump thump._

She takes another drink from her bottle and closes her eyes, focusing instead on her breathing and the beating of her heart.

 

 

*

There’s a breakfast place – “Oregon’s Finest Dining!” claims the sign nailed to the wall – a few miles from their motel in Crater Lake, and when Cora’s stuffed herself full of omelet and chocolate-chip pancakes and OJ, she wanders over to the small souvenir shop next door.

She spends a few minutes looking over the postcards, and finally settles on one that doesn’t do the lake justice but comes pretty damned close.

“Oh,” says the cashier with a knowing smile when Cora hands her four quarters. “This card’s always a favourite with tourists.”

“Right,” Cora mumbles, careful not to bend the card as she slides it into her jacket. “Thanks.”

She drops the card off into the first mailbox she sees the next day.

 

 

*

They’re on the outskirts of Portland, tanking up at an old gas station.

Cora steps out of the car for some fresh air and leans against the telephone pole as Derek fiddles with the options. She can hear the way the machine resists as he punches the button for the lowest grade gas possible, and thinks it’s a wonder this place is still running.

Later, as she’s pondering where they’ll head to next from here, she hears Derek’s approach, the stones crunching under his feet as he makes his way over to her. Then there’s a gentle weight on her shoulder as he says, “Let’s go.”

They’re almost at the car when she hears the familiar beep of Derek’s cell phone. This time, he glances up at her. “Scott has a message from Lydia. For you,” he clarifies when Cora’s only response is to arch a brow. He clears his throat, and Cora can hear his amusement in his next words: “She says not to die out here.”

Cora snorts, the corners of her lips lifting as she slides into the passenger seat.

The old man in charge waves at them when they pull out of the parking lot, and Cora raises a hand halfway in farewell.

 

 

*

The two of them make it all the way up to Washington.

Cora tastes at least ten different types of home-brewed coffees, each one more bitter than the last and she imagines the scalding drink leaving a mark on her insides as it goes down her throat. She can’t decide which one she likes best; they’re much better than your typical Starbucks brew, is what she tells a barista who only tilts her nose up at the confession, as though everyone should have known that.

Seattle itself is drizzly, and when she steps into a corner bookstore, she picks out a postcard with snow-capped mountains in the distance. She likes the feeling the picture evokes in her: a wistful, yearning sort of feeling, and it’s sad yet hopeful at the same time.

Derek asks her where she wants to go afterwards, and she shrugs.

She thinks, they could visit Canada – try original maple syrup and learn how to say _aboot_ the way Canadians do. They could cross over to Montana, and she doesn’t know what’s in Montana except country, vast plains and jagged peaks and acres and acres of unexplored land.

“Anywhere,” she finally answers, meeting his eyes. “We can go anywhere.”

 

 

*


End file.
